Once Upon A Book
by D.K. Dracona
Summary: What if Amelia found the Supernatural books?


What if Amelia found the Supernatural books?

(Takes place sometime after episode 8.10 Torn and Frayed.)

Don Richardson left for an extended trip again, leaving his wife Amelia alone and bored. She cleaned the house, did some chores, then drove around the small town looking for something to do. She found a small book/comic book store that looked interesting and went inside.

She waved at the teenager leaning against the front desk and started looking around. Exploring the store was more fun than it should have been as she looked over Superman comics, The Hunger Games books and other well known series. She slowly moved further back in the store towards the more unknown series.

At the very back of the store she found a group of books with the title 'Supernatural' that looked interesting. The front cover of the first book had two guys with giant muscles standing in front of an Impala.

 _Just like Sam drives,_ she thought to herself in amusement. She flipped the book over and read the summary:

Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious

Woman in White lures men to their deaths…

a terrifying phenomenon that may be Sam and

Dean's first clue to their father's whereabouts.

Amelia smiled, even the main character's name was Sam. She bought the book, and headed back home.

Don called when she got home to wish her good night. They talked for awhile as she made and ate dinner, telling each other about their day. When they said their goodbyes, Amelia picked up her dishes and threw them in the sink. Turning off the kitchen light she grabbed some wine and a glass then went to her couch to finally read her new book.

It started with the tragic death of their mother who burned on the ceiling of Baby Sam's nursery and Amelia knew she was hooked.

She knew it wasn't, but she pretended that the Sam in the book was her Sam. Her sweet messed up and lonely puppy dog. She could even hear him saying the lines. Book Sam had even gone to Stanford, just like her Sam; and both had a brother named Dean.

She was jealous of Sam's girlfriend Jessica who got to live with him.

She loved the spooky ghost story and spent the rest of the night reading all about the brothers as they tried to find out why people were dying on the highway.

When Sam walked into his small house, grabbed a cookie and lay on the bed after they finished solving the mystery of the Woman in White, she smiled, still pretending it was her Sam.

Book Sam opened his eyes to see his girlfriend Jessica burning on the ceiling just like their mom all those years ago. His brother Dean rushed into the room to save Sam, and Amelia's eyes welled up with tears.

When she read the last line she felt a sense of loss and longing. Unfortunately, as her clock was telling her, it was 3:24 A.M. and she had work tomorrow.

She should have bought more than the first book.

The next day during her lunch break she went back to the bookstore and bought the next five books in the series, then she bought the rest later. She read them whenever she had free time, getting more and more absorbed by the stories of the two brothers. But she also found that the more she read about book Sam the more he reminded her of _her_ Sam. And although Sam never talked about himself much she could imagine him driving the Impala with his brother hunting monsters. He had told her he moved around alot.

When she read the last book No Rest for the Wicked where Dean went to Hell, she pretended that that's when Sam ran. Ran until he hit a dog and ended up in her Vet hospital.

She pulled the books out when she was lonely or missing him. They had come to replace Sam in her head. Something she could keep hold of. Don never made the connection, thankfully.

She brought the books to work one day, where she left it on the counter while she was looking over a dog that had recently been sick. The Owner looked at the book and excitedly asked if she was reading the series.

"It's so sad that Carver Edlund never wrote any more books after Dean goes to Hell." Amelia said.

"He did!" the girl exclaimed happily. "They were never published, but they're online. If you want I can give you the website. Fans thought it was just fanfiction at first but now we're sure they're continuations of the books."

Amelia waited until Don went on another trip before she pulled up the website with the continued story. She binged on the books only stopping to get food or go to work.

Dean came back from Hell after four months, pulled out by an angel and Sam was sleeping with a demon. She wasn't sure she cared for this twist in the story but she still pretended it was _her_ Sam.

The more she read though, the more she couldn't shake the feeling that book Sam _was_ her Sam. He had the same quirks that she remembered; the same way of rubbing his hair when waking up.

She found Dean fun, but she loved Sam. His powers were interesting and he always tried to do what he thought was right.

When she started "Supernatural: The Monster at the End of This Book" she laughed at the brothers reaction to finding out their lives were being written by someone they had never met. Even more when they tried finding the Author and met the Publisher.

The brothers had shown their anti-possession tattoos to "prove" they were fans and the website had gotten an artist to illustrate the scene. The picture was very well done and Amelia smiled when she saw that book Sam and Dean both had a tattoo where her Sam had one….

Then she realized that it was the _same_ tattoo that her Sam had...

In the same place.

Amelia felt her world spiral. It couldn't be possible. It just couldn't. There was no was that her Sam and the Sam in the book where the same people.

But suddenly she could hear things from her conversations with Sam.

The words from the first time he had told her anything about himself. " _I don't pity you. Okay? I don't. You and I – we're a lot of things, but we're not to be pitied. Look, I lost my brother, Dean, a few months ago. It felt like my world imploded and came raining down on me, and... I ran. Just like you. "_

Then the night when her dad had come to visit. " _Dad was in the army, so we moved around a lot when I was a kid. Having spaghetti and hot dogs our first night in a new house was sort of a tradition." Amelia said putting a large bowl of spaghetti and hotdogs in the center of the table._

" _All right. Got it." Sam had said, "Uh, my father was in the Marines."_

" _Jarhead, huh?" her dad had asked_

" _That's right. Uh, 2nd battalion, First Marines, Echo company."_

" _I always thought they were a little puffed up, myself. But, hey. What do I know? I'm just an old grunt."_

" _You're my old grunt." Amelia had said before going back into the kitchen, but she had continued to listen to their conversation._

" _So, Ame tells me you never served."_

" _No." Sam replied._

" _See, I find that hard to believe, 'cause I got to say, Sam, you got the look."_

" _The look?"_

" _The one a lot of guys get after they've been through the meat grinder – the one that lets you know they've seen a lot of crap they can't forget." He had said seriously. "The second their feet hit solid ground, they start running, and they don't stop – not till they find something to hold on to."_

But the one that ran through her thoughts was the call Sam had gotten on the night Don had cornered him in the bar. When he had started packing before she got home; she had begged and pleaded for him to stay one last night. Sam had just agreed to staying until morning when he got a call.

No one had ever called him before and Amelia was confused by the sudden ring. Sam stared at his phone for a few seconds before he answered it with shaking hands.

" _Hello?"_

 _Sam's face went through so many emotions at once that Amelia felt dizzy, landing finally on relief._

" _Dean." He breathed. He had looked around quickly for a paper but couldn't find one. After a second he stopped. "Rufus's cabin? I'll be right there….what? Two days? Oh….okay."_

 _He had sat down on the bed and closed his eyes almost as if to bask in the voice on the other end of the phone._

" _I missed you Dean." He said reverently. "...I'll see you soon."_

 _Then the other person had hung up and Sam had stared at his phone for a long time afterwards. Even after both Amelia and Sam had laid down to go to sleep, she had felt his pent up frustration at not being able to leave yet._

 _She hadn't been surprised when he stood up two hours later and left without saying goodbye. Patting Roit one last time before he walked out of her life._

She read through the rest of the books, but she no longer separated Book Sam and her Sam.

She cried when she read about Dean trying to stop him from killing Lilith, more when the Angels had changed the voice mail. When Lucifer was freed she trembled, and when she found that Sam was his vessel she bit her lip in anger that her puppy dog had to suffer so much.

Don had come home to find her crying after reading the book "Supernatural: The End" He had closed her laptop and laughingly told her she was taking her book too seriously. She nodded at the time but couldn't help feeling frustrated at his timing.

She snuck in reading during her lunches and breaks at the animal hospital.

Don left on another trip just as she reached the last book in the series, "Swan Song".

She set up her laptop in the kitchen where she sat reading the story while eating a carton of Moose Tracks ice cream. Most of it melted by the time she reached Carver Edlund's finale.

Sam had said "Yes" to Lucifer in an attempt to sacrifice himself and throwing himself into the Cage with him, but the plan hadn't worked, and Lucifer had taken over.

Tears streamed down Amelia's face as she read about both brothers sides. When Dean decided to die with Sam, and as Sam watched as Lucifer killed all the demons whom he had thought were his civilian friends growing up.

The ice cream melted in the box.

Dean arrived at the cemetery during the "prize fight". Lucifer pummeled him into the impala angry at being interrupted, and suddenly he had been bombarded with all of Sam's memories, so much so that Sam had been able to take control for long enough to fall into the Cage.

Amelia cried, unable to finish reading because of the tears blocking her vision. She cried for hours, reading one sentence at a time through her tears, until the very last word, and suddenly she knew why Sam had left.

It wasn't just because of Don, or her. If Don had never come home alive, Sam would have still left her when he heard Dean's voice over the phone.

Because Sam was Dean's whole world, and Dean was Sam's.

She never did find out how Sam got out of Hell but she pretended that Dean had been the one to do it.

She was no longer jealous of Jessica. Now she was jealous of Dean who would always be first in Sam's world no matter what.


End file.
